"Fuel gauge problems"

In the Philippines, the W123 model is known as a "project" car which essentially translates to what you've been doing to your T-wagen. Admittedly you've gone far down the green road vis-a-vis a typical Filipino W123 diesel fan. As for your fuel gauge problem, its usually caused by a "sinking" float in the fuel tank. Time was when parts were hard to come by in this country, so fuel gauge floats were repaired by extracting the thing from the tank - not easy as a tank dismount was needed - draining the float, and patching it up with epoxy. But since labor rates in the Philippines were cheaper than Do-it-Yourself cost of mistakes, it was the thing to do. Besides, do fans ever subject their car repairs to a time and motion study or cost benefit analysis? Nowadays, with lots of breaker yard W123 parts coming to this part of the world from Eastern Europe, we can find fuel tank floats for a few pesos [exchange rate is 47 pesos to one US dollar].

colin
Posted: 1/19/2009 9:10am PST

"sinking float"

Tito - thanks for the advice on the damaged float in the fuel tank. We have a great junkyard in Atlanta that I will scour for a new float. Alas, wagons are hard to come by, and they have a different tank than the coupes and sedans. I will look in my manuals to see if the floats are interchangeable.
I didn't know that the 123-series was so big in the Phillipines, nor that you guys did veggie conversions! But I did know that the venerable 123 is operating reliably in countries the world over. Thanks for the response and the advice.